


like some smoke that i tried too hard to hold

by celeste9



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghost(s), Moving On, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:47:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21895006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: (spoilers for TRoS)Ben has trouble letting go.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Luke Skywalker & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 10
Kudos: 93





	like some smoke that i tried too hard to hold

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feelings to work through and I guess I ship this now. Oops? Title from Brian Fallon.

Sometimes he thinks she sees him. She turns toward him, like before, but she only looks, and then something will distract her. Someone calling her name, Finn walking up, that round orange astromech that caused so much trouble. She always turns away, and Ben is still alone.

He guesses that’s how it should be, but he doesn’t have to like it.

Rey looks good. She looks healthy, no physical sign of the trauma she endured, and she looks happy. She smiles with her friends. Ben would be lying if he said that didn’t give him a pang, that she can go around like nothing happened, like he – like they –

But it’s good. It’s good that she’s happy. He died so she could have a life, so he can’t be upset that she’s living it.

Maybe a little disappointed. A tiny bit. He’s human.

Was human? He’s dead now, so.

He’s dead. He doesn’t know why that still seems so surprising.

Ben wonders if he’s a ghost. Is that why he can still see her so clearly? It isn’t like he wants to spend his afterlife hanging around the Resistance while they clean up the mess left by the First Order, by Palpatine.

And by him. Ben definitely deserves a large share of the blame.

Maybe this is his punishment. Eternity spent gazing after Rey, knowing she can’t sense him, watching Dameron and the traitor joking and laughing and hugging, being with her while he can’t be.

He probably shouldn’t call him the traitor anymore. After all, Ben is kind of one now, too.

“We were a pair,” Ben says into the air, watching Rey fix up the _Millennium Falcon_ with Chewbacca. (Uncle Chewie? Can he call him that again? Does he want to? Does he get to?) “A dyad. Why can’t you tell I’m here?”

“Death breaks bonds, kid.”

Ben closes his eyes. When he opens them, he knows what he’ll see.

“You look older,” Ben says to his uncle.

Luke’s blue eyes still shine with the same good humor Ben remembers from his childhood, before it all went so wrong. “I was making a point.”

“And I guess you’re here now to add to my torment?”

“Ben, the only one tormenting you is yourself.” Luke steps over to a fallen log and sits down, arranging his robes around himself. He somehow still manages to look like a part of the galaxy, even blue-tinged like a holo, even though Ben knows by the lack of reaction that no one alive can see him. “You did good. Eventually. So maybe let yourself enjoy it.”

“Enjoy being dead?” Ben scowls.

“Hey, living would be harder. You made most of these people’s lives hell. Now you don’t have to spend your days making up that for that.”

“You were always terrible at pep talks.”

Luke laughs. “Sit with me, kid.”

Ben hasn’t tried to interact with the living world yet. Even when he’s watching Rey and hoping for her to see him, he is expecting it to work like their bond, like it’s only them, like he has to make an extra effort to affect anything else around her. But when he moves over to Luke, he finds he can sit on that fallen log like he still has a corporeal body.

They both watch Rey.

“You never had been able to master healing. You lacked the necessary calm and focus.” Luke pauses. “And also the compassion.”

Ben can’t make himself not look at Rey, taking a proffered tool from BB-8 and smiling. “I guess I learned a lot of things at the end.”

“But not everything.” Luke settles his hand on Ben’s knee and Ben turns to him, startled, because he can feel that. “You have to learn to let go.”

A horrible, familiar pinching sensation sets in between his eyes as he feels the onset of tears. He furiously holds them back. “I can’t. I… I _can’t._ ”

The pressure on Ben’s knee grows stronger as Luke squeezes. “You can. You’ve done more difficult things.”

“I’m not sure I have.”

“You gave her her life back,” Luke says, his tone kinder than Ben can remember hearing in… well, in a long, long time. “But not one with you in it.”

“I know,” Ben says, shamed as a tear escapes to fall down his cheek.

“Your family is waiting for you, Ben.” Luke stands up, setting himself between Ben and his view of Rey. “Come join them.”

His mother. Another tear slides free. Stars, his mother. How can he ever…

“They’re waiting for you,” Luke says again, like he knows what Ben is thinking. “And there are still things I can teach you, when you’re ready. You can see her again, when you’ve learned to let her go.”

“What does that mean?” A memory comes to him, his uncle speaking of his own training, of seeing his masters after their deaths. “You mean like Master Yoda? Master Obi-Wan?”

“When you’re ready,” Luke says, and as he turns, he fades, leaving Ben alone once more.

Alone, with Rey so close and yet entirely out of reach.

Ben has little impression of time but he thinks days pass. He thinks on what his uncle said. He really does try. He knows he can’t do this forever, and yet he almost thinks he would deserve it.

He supposes it’s maybe a bit of irony. All his talk of letting the past go and here he is, lingering. Dead and yet unable to move on.

It’s a joke, really. He said ‘let go of the past’ while the image of his father with Ben’s red lightsaber through his middle was imprinted in his brain. Ben has never been good at letting go, not even when he was destroying everything in his life.

Rey is preparing for a trip. Ben doesn’t know where she intends to go, but he knows she is leaving. He wonders if he could follow her.

But he knows he won’t. Rather, he can’t allow himself to try. He thinks this is harder than throwing away his lightsaber but Luke was right. This is Rey’s life, not Ben’s, and he needs to let go.

His family is waiting. Ben can’t keep hiding from them out of fear.

“Rey,” Ben says, and she looks up. She looks straight at him and Ben’s heart stops.

Then it falls, because he can’t keep doing this. Their bond no longer exists. “I know you can’t see me,” he says. “But I hope… I…” He clenches his fist at his side. What does it even matter? What he wants doesn’t matter, and she won’t know anyway.

“Ben?” Rey whispers.

For a few seconds Ben can’t speak, his breath and his voice caught in his throat. He swallows. “Rey? Can you see me?”

She is still looking, but not really with her eyes. She feels him, Ben realizes. She can’t see him, but she can feel him. She feels him through the Force.

“I hope you’re happy,” Ben says, squeezing the words out past the lump in his throat. It doesn’t seem quite fair, but then, of course, it is. Ben knows he doesn’t deserve this life, the imaginary life he could have had with her. He is lucky to have earned her regard. He is lucky to have stood with her, to have fought with her by his side.

Ben holds out his hand, not expecting anything, but needing to.

Rey reaches out, and their fingers meet but don’t touch. His hand ghosts through hers and for a moment the bitter disappointment is overwhelming.

But then Rey smiles, tears bright and wet in her eyes, and it’s okay.

It’s okay. Rey will be okay.

“Will you be alright?” Rey asks, and Ben can’t help it. He laughs.

_Me,_ he thinks. _She’s asking about me._

He wonders how it might have been, if he had known her sooner, if he had listened to her sooner, if he had taken her hand. It doesn’t really matter; it’s not like he can change it. He made his choices and he knows they were mostly bad ones, but he’s lived with that, and now he’s died for it. He’s pretty okay with that, which is maybe a weird thing to realize. It feels strange to feel so close to being settled, to being at peace, after the tumult of his emotion-fueled life.

Ben thinks he would have loved her.

He knows she can’t truly hear him, but he hopes she understands when he says, “I will be.”

Ben lets go.

**_End_ **


End file.
